Val and Faith are joined in the studio by Dr Lauren Pearson, Research Fellow & Equity Lead, Sustainable Mobility and Safety Research at Monash University. We share our bike moments before taking a look at some local news. 

Over the New Year the Road Safety Action Plan Phase 2 was released. Developed by Victoria's Road Safety Partners, the plan includes some subtle changes in language and otherwise that may prove significant for active transport in Melbourne and Victoria. 

 The Age has included in a recent story on Victoria's road toll over the past 15 years a handy infographic that can be filtered by suburb and shows the impact of t he road toll on different road users, pedestrians, cyclsists and others, over the last. fifteen years. Take a look at Victoria's Road toll by the numbers. 

Discussion turns to the Petal Project and the report Unlocking young women’s access to bike-riding relesed late last year. Lauren explains how the project came about, the complexity of travel for young women, of their choices with repect to different modes and how considerations of these issues hasn't traditionally been a part of the provision of transport infrastrcuture. With so much left to unpack when we run out of time we decide we will need to have Lauren back on the program soon to look at the solutions and interventions particpants in the project came up with for many of the issues raised during the course of research.